RE-EXISTIR BULLETIN
Issue #4: starting over
Fall 2025
native lands “inland empire”
READ & DOWNLOAD HERE: rex4
“For a majority of people, revolution and war have the same meaning: this is an error that in light of mistaken criteria makes the last resort of the oppressed appear to be barbarism. War has the invariable characteristics of hatred and national or personal ambitions; from it comes a relative benefit for a given individual or group who is paid with the blood and sacrifice of the masses. The Revolution is an abrupt shaking-off, the human tendency toward improvement. Against humanity wars are waged, but never revolutions; the former destroy, perpetuating injustices, while the latter mix, agitate, confuse, disrupt, and melt in the purifying fire of new ideas the old elements poisoned by prejudice and eaten away by moths, to extract from the ardent crucible of catastrophe a more benign environment for the development and expansion of all species.”
– “The Purpose of Revolution” From Regeneración, September 17, 1910
RE-ENVISIONING THE INLAND EMPIRE
Cities across the IE have been working hard to push for development. Politicans throughout the region pride themselves on their participation in the construction of shopping centers and warehouses, all in the name of progress. From the ancient Jurupa Oak under constant threat from developers seeking expansion to the demolishing of a Bloomington elementary school for the construction of an enormous warehouse cluster, it is time that we re-examine what “development” means to us. The way things currently stand, the creation of expensive condos, multiplication of warehouses, and expansion of national franchises do more harm than good in the long run.
We are in the midst of a major housing crisis where many families have felt forced to leave the area, and even the state, and other families are moving in together into small houses or apartments. In response, we get $2,500 studios for rent and half a million dollar homes. Low-income housing is extremely limited and some people are being pushed out of homes altogether. Complaints about unhoused community members are prevalent, yet not enough attention is given to the circumstances that force people out of homes. High-end housing developments do not increase our quality of life, but rather displace those of us who have been here for years.
One of the reasons people did not often move to the IE to begin with was because it has long been an area of large, empty lots and a reputation for danger and nothingness. To counter this, cities are making efforts to create events and build up new shopping centers. While entertainment and acquiring goods are both necessary, the ways in which this “development” is done is questionable. Big-name stores and coffee shops are brought in for our consumption, yet have done and will do nothing for our actual community. We shop from them, they keep a majority of the profit, and then use that money outside of our cities. They underpay their employees and overcharge our already struggling community. These corporations are not invested in our well-being, which has been well noted by their silence as ICE rips apart the community members who work for them. They do not provide us with a genuine sense of community, but instead keep us locked in consumption while they reap the benefits.
Job security has long been complicated in the area, yet the cities’ solution is to welcome a plethora of warehouses proven to poison our lungs. Warehouse workers get offered what are referred to as “competitive salaries,” because employers know that other fields are underfunded and underpaid. Fancy lunches and holiday bonuses are used to keep warehouses staffed, yet the wealthy owners of these warehouses do not live here because they know that they are making our cities increasingly unsafe. And they offer these things because they know that without them, workers would be more inclined to complain about the working conditions and environmental impact. Additionally, part of “development” is automation. There are active efforts to make these jobs obsolete as technology increases. Warehouses are not a long-term solution. They provide immediate relief but contribute to much larger-scale social deterioration.
We deserve better. And, if we work together, through direct action, we can get it.
What if instead we built community kitchens?
What if instead we planted gardens?
What if instead we expanded our libraries?
What if instead we built farms?
What if instead we fixed up our parks?
What if instead we, as a community, used all of this space to actually solve our problems.
Landlords and developers hog housing, leaving us scrambling for crumbs. We could fight them. We could form tenants unions. We could interrupt construction. We could push them out of our communities. Conversely, we could work together to acquire houses or land collectively. We could build our own houses. We could take back the land from those who have stolen it. We have options.
Shopping centers keep popping up because we allow them into our communities. We could stand up and say no. We could beat them to the land and start our own projects there. We could find or form better sources of entertainment and interaction. We could help our construction working community members resist building for them. We could show already existing stores what we actually think of them. We have options.
Warehouse developers think they could convince us that warehouse jobs are the only option in the IE. They are powerful because they corner us into complacency. We do not need to be complacent. We could open farms and create alternate jobs. We could stop production and show them who has the power. We could provide for each other rather than relying on a paycheck. We could make housing and food accessible, so that nobody feels like they have to poison their lungs in order to survive. We absolutely have options.
If life is about joy and connection and laughter, why do we let politicians and business executives take those things away from us?
We must refuse to let others define “progress” for us. We must refuse to let others define “quality of life” for us. We can choose our own criteria of existence: one that is not based on the consumption of unnecessary goods, the destruction of the earth, or the deteriorating health of our loved ones. We can live a safer, fuller, healthier, and more fulfilling life, but we must search for our own meaning, our own purpose, and support each other to acquire it. And we must kick those who think they can bully us into fulfilling their exploitative wet dreams the fuck out of our communities.
A Lesson From Nopalito Enojado
SOMEONE’S MAN:
“We can’t have a revolution, people will lose their minds and do whatever the fuck they want!”
NOPALITO:
“Well, rest assured, reality is not like the Hollywood movies that you see on the screens. The problem isn’t “the people doing whatever they want:” the capitalist and political classes already get away with heinous warcrimes and economic plunder. Revolution isn’t chaos: historical evidence has shown that the breakdown of centralized order frees the creative initiative of the people. Natural disasters are a key example: whether it was the 1985 earthquake in Mexico City, the 2005 Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans, or the 2017 Hurricane Maria in Puerto Rico, one will see that it was community self-organization that made possible all the care and resources for those in need, despite being abandoned by government. In a society shaped by lies and deceit, the truth is often backwards. It is more realistic to start over than to pretend that improving the system is possible. The system is broken by design: it is un-reformable. It is more idealistic to believe in reform, than it is to conceive of a new society and to walk that path. Revolution has been the fact of humanity since its very start.”
spaces for re-existence
“We are not in the least afraid of ruins. We are going to inherit the earth; there is not the slightest doubt about that. The bourgeoisie might blast and ruin its own world before it leaves the stage of history. We carry a new world here, in our hearts. That world is growing this minute.”
– Buenaventura Durruti
Capitalism and colonialism propagate by forcing us into feelings of isolation, mistrust, and financial insecurity. They teach us to focus our energy on ourselves and our nuclear family, to live in constant fear “rising crime” (despite that it has been disproven on multiple occasions), to commit to the hustle so we can survive. When we feel trapped between the pressures of work/school and the pressures of home, we feel that we have little time to focus our energy on anything else. Yet, it is precisely in the “anything else” that we can find the support we need. When we can escape our bubble, we can find new thoughts, unexpected connections, resources, ways of being. The concept of the “third space” is that which counters the typical school-to-home, or home-to-work routine. As the name describes, it offers a third option: one that is not centered on more money and survival, but instead encourages thriving, sharing and connecting. Having spaces where we can meet others, learn new things, and just be is crucial in the creation of a better world. It connects us to others who can help us through survival, it teaches us how to organize in groups to reach shared goals, and it makes space for creativity and imagination.
Ideally, third spaces would be places that prioritize community over profits, where resources are shared and all people can convene. These spaces can be coffee shops, book stores, community centers, and more. In our first issue, we compiled a list of cool spaces we knew of. Among them, we included the now closed Birdcage Cafe. A place which was a favorite for many of us, yet proved to be exploiting the work and souls of its workers. We also included a list of other spaces which are still actively supporting our community. Some of those spaces are listed below for y’all to explore. While there are already a few spaces (which we absolutely must continue supporting), we also recognize that the spaces we have available to us are few and far in between, and that the need for spaces where we can connect and share ideas is ever-increasing.
So, here’s a Nopalito-approved wishlist of the kinds of spaces we’d like to see more of. Maybe you and your friends can find a way to make some of them happen:
– A neighborhood garden where folks meet up for weekly potlucks.
– A sick ass DIY all-ages music venue where local radical artists can coalesce and touring bands can crash at.
– A restaurant that distributes free weekly meals and functions as a free venue every other weekend.
– A bookstore that hosts space every weekend for neighbors to share tools and repair their things together.
– A farm that hosts regular workshops to teach community members basic survival skills.
– An abandoned lot structured for cozy meeting and reserved occasionally to host “rent parties” in support of neighbors in need.
– A cooperatively owned grocery store with a pantry of free items available outside for all to use.
– A collectively fixed up abandoned house that hosts events and has a makeshift kitchen all can use and care for.
We can also take inspiration from other spaces throughout California that were created through the determination of organized groups of people. For example, the Centro de La Raza in San Diego as well as Chicano Park were spaces that were created through direct action mobilizations back in the 70s, where local organizers took matters into their own hands by seizing private abandoned property for the community. Today, these are thriving cultural public spaces that enrich and empower our people, but were only made possible through dedicated effort and commitment to direct action tactics. Likewise, we too must seize the opportunities to carve out spaces in ways that are both antagonistic to the system and nourishing for our communities. We deserve so much more than the overpriced downtowns or shitty strip malls forced upon us by capitalism: those of us committed to rebel dignity must literally take space for our people, to show them that better places for existence are possible, here and now.
kNOW YOUR ENEMY: ICE/CBP
A recent report has alarmingly revealed that new ICE weapons spending included “guided missile warheads and explosive components” [“ICE’s Spending on Weaponry Is Up More Than 600 Percent Over Last Year,” from Mother Jones]. At best, they will only threaten the public with this new armament; at worst, we can expect these to be used against their perceived enemies. Now, more than ever, we see the unfolding of an unpredictable, and possibly protracted military conflict with the ICE kidnapper regime. The moment of the militant has arrived.
Our communities must begin to acquire firearms, practice hand-to-hand combat, learn guerrilla and land defense tactics, and create of networks of material sustenance. Every affinity group, household, couple, and collective can form contingency plans, study military tactics, compile caches of survival necessities, and actively build community with nearby neighbors and hubs of autonomous groups. Instead of the system’s insistence on individualist prepper culture and its paranoid death cult of private property, we can center collective measures for self-defense and inter-dependence in order to construct an effective front against the incoming fascist attacks. Only through a team-effort can we overcome this dystopia. Our futures do not have the luxury of inactivity in the present: we must always conspire and take action!
“The current revolution has not been made to satisfy the interests of a personality, a group or a party. The current revolution acknowledges deeper origins and pursues higher ends. The peasant was hungry, suffered misery, suffered exploitation, and if they rose up in arms it was to obtain the bread that the greed of the rich denied them; to take possession of the land that the landowner selfishly kept for himself; to defend their dignity, which the slave driver iniquitously trampled over every day. They launched into revolt not to win illusory political rights that do not feed them, but to procure the piece of land that will provide them with food and freedom, a happy home and a future of independence and growth.”
– Emiliano Zapata from To the Mexican People manifesto (Milpa Alta, August 1914)
ANARCHIST GALAXY WISHLIST: Coordinated Lootings
Everyone is having a hard time surviving capitalism these days, and it will only get harder. One way of getting real about organized forms of community-survival is to make our survival methods a bad time for capitalists and the state. We would love to see coordinated lootings of big-box stores such as Amazon Fresh, Wal-mart, or Target. Many of the shoppers in these stores struggle to make ends meet, and them seeing a looting pop off could really help someone get away with getting things they need. Also, fuck these companies, our people matter more.
With a crew of just about a dozen people spread through-out the store, and prior knowledge about the fire-alarms and emergency exit locations, anything is possible. Have everyone dress anonymously, and filter into the store one by one. When everyone is inside with their baskets full, someone sets off the fire alarm or creates some similar distraction, giving the signal for everyone to charge the gates. Such an aggressive tact is bound to provoke the most aggressive response the corporation can muster, but it does put the issue of access to material goods on the table, and it may inspire others or even enable them to get away without paying, too. As long as you were are careful not to give away your plan in advance, you could combine this tactic with an advertising campaign on their behalf: “Thursday, May 1st is free shopping day at Commodity Consumption Incorporated! Come take advantage of our lowest prices ever, and enjoy this show of appreciation to all our customers. Offer limited between the hours of one and five p.m. — 100% off, everything must go!” Let’s make community-survival fun and antagonistic again.
FLASHBACK FRIDAY
The following is an adaptation of excerpts of writings by Ricardo Flores Magon, (with articles from Revolución magazine). Their words ring truer than ever:
There is no virtue in passivity. In this bitter epoch of injustice and oppression, it is necessary to raise one’s gaze to the shining heights, to the free minds, to the combative souls.
To fight for a redemptory idea is to practice the noblest of the virtues. To fight is not to deliver oneself to martyrdom or to look for death. To fight is to fight to win. Fighting is life, bristling, roaring life which abominates suicide, and knows how to wound and how to triumph.
Let those come who are disposed to disdain danger and to tread on the sands of combat where there will be scenes of fatally necessary barbarism, and where valor is acclaimed and where heroism has its seductive apotheosis.
Let us hasten to fight for more than ourselves: for our children, for the generations to come, who will call at our crypts to scoff at us if we remain petrified—if we don’t destroy this regime of abjection in which we live—but who will salute us with affection if we agitate, if we are loyal to the glorious shield behind which humanity advances.
Let us work for the future, to save our descendants from pain. It is force which will destroy this slave pit of shame and misery; it is force which will prepare the advent of a new, egalitarian, happy society.
It doesn’t matter if we perish in the hazardous battle if we have gained the noblest satisfaction in life: the satisfaction that in our name history will speak to the man of tomorrow, emancipated through our efforts.
Our battle is epic; we have our chains as weapons, which we will break over the heads of despots.
We have laid out the dilemma in this way—life or death: life for us is triumph, and death is the only force that can block our path.
We stand upright, and will never kneel to any power. We will face the enemy; we will not turn our back to any danger.
Fighters, let’s get to work!
Let us waste not another second at leisure.
Let us give our nerves the rapid vibration of an electric current to shock the atmosphere out of the dreadful quietism that suffocates our land.
Let us enlarge the flame of our torch by blowing on it with all the force of our lungs until it dispels the horrific scene with its red resplendence.
Let us unleash the blows of our fists and untie the torment within our minds.
Let’s violentize our step and multiply our action.
Let us advance; the path lies before us, awaiting.
“ALL RULERS ARE THE SAME“
from Regeneración, July 25, 1914
“A man can have good intentions prior to being a ruler, but it’s very difficult for him to conserve those intentions upon reaching power, and it’s impossible that he’ll still have them when he’s a ruler.
To reach power it’s necessary that the candidate enter into compromises with the enemies of his party so as to assure his election, offering those enemies benefits that can only be delivered through sacrificing his ideals. He arrives then in power, without anything left of his desires favoring the people, and disposed simply to do everything he can to assure his remaining in the coveted position.
If, by mere chance, the man has been able to elevate himself without entering into compromises with his enemies, and, therefore, conserves intact the intentions he had when promising to pursue the good of the people, these intentions will die in his breast one by one before he begins to put them into practice. As soon as he’s in power he’ll see himself surrounded by individuals who are powerful by virtue of their wealth, their influence, their talent, their knowledge, and by astute politicians who know how to contrive to be in the good graces of the government, men who get up with the rising sun disposed to change their stripes with each day if it’s necessary to the pursuit of their selfish ends
In such an environment, the man who previously rubbed elbows with the common people will forget them. Sickened by the incense of adulators, regaled by distinguished men and women of high rank, in continuous contact with diplomats and other gilded insects of international politics, he’ll come to believe that he is better than other men, and he’ll feel himself superior or make himself into a tyrant like any other ruler.
The projects that he had in his head about freeing the people from tyranny will make him laugh; he’ll consider them unrealizable, criminal attacks on acquired rights, monstrous crimes. It’s simply that a new manner of looking at things will unfold within him. Before, he saw things from the bottom looking up; now he sees things from the top looking down. His psychology is different: before, he thought and felt as a part of the great mass that comprises the nation; now, he feels detached from this great mass, he sees himself about this mass, he believes himself better than the mass, he imagines himself superior to the mass.”
WE JUST TURNED ONE!!
Yo, can y’all believe Re-Existir Bulletin is 1 year old!? We sure fucking can’t. We love the work we do and the folks who read us. We wouldn’t be here if it weren’t for all of you!
For such an occasion, we recommend two ways to celebrate. First, share the fuck out of our issues! Gift some to your friends, gift some to your cousins. Sneak some into your neighbor’s mailbox. Throw them at crowds at a soccer game. Our issues are all free of copyright, so you can scan and print and distribute to your heart’s desire. They are also available for download on our website at reexist(dot)noblogs(dot)org
As for the second way to celebrate? Well, you ever hear the phrase “be gay, do crime”? … Just wondering…
If you would like to send us some memes, money for printing/equipment, fan mail, hate mail, or if you would like to collaborate, or if you want us at your events, get in touch!
Email/Reach out/Find us online:
@re_existir_ /// @love_and_disorder_
culosinaction@duck.com /// reexist.noblogs.org